My next visit was from the three Rapoport families. The three brothers – Wolf, Arron, and Michael Rapoport – were all doctors in the same practice; I sometimes think of them as the Marx Brothers!
Ewan and I had got to know Arron and his wife Sylvia before we moved to Croydon (they had been at parties where Ewan sang, and Sylvia joined a dance class I was running), and Arron was our own GP for a time.
Later, I also became friendly with Arron’s elder brother Wolf and his wife Annie and their children Tosh (short – sort of – for ‘Patricia’), Judy and David. David was Hamish’s age and they went to grammar school together (and he was later Hamish’s best man) and Tosh and Judy babysat for me regularly. Kirsty was a great favourite with all of them. Linda (Arron’s younger brother Michael’s daughter) was Kirsty’s age and they were later at primary school together.
The hospital decided to send me home after three days and Ewan’s mother said she would like to stay with me until he came back from his tour. Hamish, now nine years old, was thrilled to have a little sister and was very helpful fetching and carrying for her. The next morning he sat on my bed covered in spots: chicken pox! Fortunately, the baby was immune, but despite having gone through it myself as a child, I succumbed again a few days later and remained very poorly for several more.
So when visitors arrived to ‘wet the baby’s head’, glasses were raised to my recovery as well, though I couldn’t myself partake. Among the well-wishers was Joan Littlewood, who had rung to say she was hoping to visit with the Irish playwright (and notorious drinker) Brendan Behan. She eventually turned up rather late and somewhat apologetic. It seemed Brendan had celebrated Kirsty’s birth at every hostelry on the way to the station, and she had finally left him at the last one, as she thought I would not be best pleased for him to be breathing boozily over my baby – she was right! The large bottle of champagne she brought was nevertheless shared out among my other visitors and made for a proper party atmosphere.
Joan also told me that my actor friends from the Theatre Workshop, Yootha Joyce, her husband Glynn Edwards and Stella and Howard Goorney, had stayed up all night playing cards to pass the time while waiting to celebrate the baby’s arrival. Yootha rang the hospital several times that evening asking for news on ‘Jean Newlove’ and at last wailed in desperation, ‘Well, she must have had it by now!’ It was only when the hospital thought to ask if ‘Miss’ Newlove might have a married name that the penny dropped.
Hamish and I recovered over the following weeks and life took on a daily routine. When the local nurse called in to see how we were getting on, she took one look at Kirsty and exclaimed, ‘Oh, she’s a redhead!’ then sought to reassure me by adding, ‘Never mind, dear. They’re all nice.’
Ewan had made noises about the two of us getting back together after his trip and while I would have wanted us to put recent traumatic months behind us, I had few expectations of a future together – after all, while I had just given birth to his daughter, he had a child with Peggy. Though part of me felt sorry for him, torn between two young families, I knew that events had overtaken him and I had to get on with my new life. In a single year I had lost the three most important men in my life: my father had died, my husband Ewan had left me and my spiritual mentor, the great choreographer and theorist of dance Rudolf Laban, died in 1958.
• • •
I can’t remember a time when I did not want to dance. At the age of seven, taking my first ballet examination in 1930, I was offered a scholarship by the celebrated international dancer Espinosa. Then retired, he was running his own ballet school in London. However, my parents thought I was too young to leave home and were also concerned about my wider education. I continued with my dance classes in the local area and at the same time started reading all about the subject in the public library. I worked my way through the classical ballet section, where I learned about the great Bolshoi. I decided I should learn Russian with a view to visiting that country one day; I only managed to get as far as mastering the alphabet.
Then I came across a book on ‘modern’ dance and first encountered the name of Rudolf Laban. It seemed that he was the founder of an entirely new dance form that eschewed tutus and block ballet shoes and that his ex-pupil, Kurt Jooss, ran his own modern dance company and had just won an award in Paris for his great piece of anti-war choreography, The Green Table. Laban was also described as a crystallographer, artist, architect, dancer and philosopher. I had to learn more about this man and his type of dance at the earliest opportunity.
The outbreak of war in 1939 seemed to put paid to my plans. I was then 16, and my brother Pip was in the British Expeditionary Force in France and soon to be evacuated from Dunkirk. One year later, I heard that Jooss was living in Cambridge. It was too good an opportunity to miss, and I successfully petitioned him for an audition. He invited me to join the company as a student dancer.
It seemed that the company would attempt to go abroad. I spoke to my father, who advised me not to take up the offer for two reasons. One was that the war was going badly for Britain and plans could change without warning; many foreigners were being interned. Secondly, within a year I would have finished my Higher Certificate and could finish school. Hopefully, things might have improved by then. And so I took his advice.
I remembered that my father had himself won an art scholarship as a boy, which he had similarly been unable to take up, through no fault of his own. As a young man he had worked in Paris for many years, spending his spare time watching and learning from the artists there. My mother was also living in Paris, where she was working as a nurse. They used to meet in the Parc Monceau and in due course became engaged and got married before returning to England soon after the start of the First World War.
In the spring of 1941, I heard that Laban himself was staying at Dartington Hall in Devon, the guest of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst. During his convalescence from one of many bouts of illness, he met FC Lawrence, a trustee of the Dartington estate. Lawrence, a factory consultant and engineer, had become fascinated by Laban’s movement theories, and suggested that Laban should apply his theories of movement to the war effort and increase production in industry. Many women had taken over heavy work from their menfolk. A creative partnership had been formed. I travelled to Dartington, danced for Laban and he asked me to train with him and become his assistant. Third time lucky!
I became a pioneer in helping women improve their skills and increase production. At the end of the war, Laban received a letter from a young woman who said she was a great fan of his work. Her name was Joan Littlewood. She wondered whether he might be able to recommend someone to come and train a company of young actors in movement, someone who would be both a performer and a choreographer. Laban, knowing that my ambition was to work in theatre, recommended me, and suggested I visit them on a part-time basis.
After the dreadful war years, it was a fascinating experience for me to return to dance professionally and work with other artists. I discovered that the company was called Theatre Workshop, and met its founders, Ewan MacColl and Joan Littlewood, the company’s playwright and director respectively. I was soon required full time, and went with Laban’s blessing.
I also made discreet enquiries about the playwright’s availability. It seemed that he and Joan had married when they were both 19, but the marriage had not lasted more than a few months and Joan now had an enduring relationship with Gerry Raffles, the company’s business manager. Ewan was unattached! We married in April 1949.
Ewan was born of Scottish parents in Salford, near Manchester and was their only child. His mother often had to support the family because of his father’s ill health due to asthma. Ewan was greatly influenced by his father’s politics: he was a staunch trade unionist who frequently found himself on strike for better conditions and was consequently a thorn in the flesh of the management. I never got to meet him, but Joan told me that he was a very good singer of traditional Scottish songs and an extremely popular figure with his colleagues. As a child, Ewan learnt much of his father’s repertoire.